Chapter 8, Part 2 Summary

Kogin offers Yakov cigarettes, as he talks through the cell door. He asks Yakov to recite more scripture, because he is depressed. Kogin's son has been arrested for theft and sentenced to twenty years in Siberia. Yakov asks Kogin to release him from the chains. Kogin responds by saying he sympathizes with Yakov and tries not to think about the man in the chains, as it is too difficult to think that he had put Yakov in that pain.

At night, Yakov dreams of Shmuel in a coffin. He wakes pleading with God to let Yakov die for Shmuel. Yakov decides if he kills himself, he cannot die for anyone and decides to suffer. Rather than attack the Deputy Warden during a cavity search to get shot, Yakov steels himself to live. Life becomes his new challenge in prison.